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The NBC Store may have just had their email server compromised

One of the benefits to having my own domain is the ability to create as many custom email addresses as I want. When I sign up on a new website, I create a custom email just for that website and redirect it to my “main” email account.

Today, I received a junk email for the email address I set up only for the NBC Store. It is a “amazon delivery” notice with a “confirmation link” that redirects to a website in Spain.

Since I have never used the email address for the NBC Store anywhere else, and since it was sent directly to that alias account I created, I think it is safe to say the NBC Store’s customer email server has been compromised.

If you have an email account with the NBC Store, get ready for a flood of junk mail and malware.

You don’t have to own your own domain to set up a “ghost” email address. Google lets you create something similar with any gmail address!

On the next website that wants you to sign up with your email address, type a + sign after your gmail name and before the @ to make a “ghost” email address that will forward to your main gmail.com address.

For example, if bill.gates@gmail.com wanted to sign up at the NBCSTORE and wanted to use a “ghost” email address, he could just type in bill.gates+NBCSTORE@gmail.com at NBC Store’s website. NBC Store would send their emails to bill.gates+NBCSTORE@gmail.com and Bill would see it in his regular bill.gates@gmail.com inbox as coming from bill.gates+NBCSTORE@gmail.com.

While this takes longer than just putting in a standard email address, I find “ghost” email addresses are invaluable in finding out who sells email addresses (LinkedIn), who keeps them reserved (Apple, Microsoft), and on occasion, who has been hacked.